Rapala VMC pro staffer JP DeRose goes over CrushCity’s The Jerk - a 3.75-inch jerk shad / fluke-style soft bait suitable for an array of open-water and ice fishing techniques to catch walleye, smallmouth and largemouth bass, northern pike, trout, yellow perch, crappie and more. Designed and tested specifically for northern angling scenarios by Rapala VMC Canada’s R&D team, The Jerk embodies several unique characteristics, making it a one-of-a-kind soft bait that stands out in the crowd of fork-tailed baitfish plastics on the market.
Like every one of the soft bait models within the CrushCity Canada collection, The Jerk is made of Super TPE (aka Thermoplastic elastomer). This extremely durable, stretchy, buoyant and temperature tolerant material is the driving force behind many of the unique characteristics of these stellar soft baits, and The Jerk is no exception.
For example, Super TPE’s buoyancy is what keeps The Jerk in a natural, horizontal baitfish position when drop-shotting or moping (Damiki-rigging) it on a jig. High-floatation also ensures The Jerk exhibits a tail-up position when resting or slowly worked along the lakebed on a jig.
“You’re going to get a feeding minnow position on a Swinging Ned Rig Jig or a Ned Rig Jig on the bottom,” DeRose said.
Incredible suppleness is another game-changing feature of Super TPE. This characteristic is immediately apparent when one takes The Jerk out of the package. Hold The Jerk by the head with your index finger and thumb, and it’s almost impossible to stop its pliable forktail from quivering. Turn it on its side and its lower half bends effortlessly. Even better, because Super TPE is tolerant of extreme hot and cold temperatures, The Jerk maintains this lifelike, supple action from the dog days of summer to the coldest ice fishing temperatures.
Peeling back the curtain further on The Jerk’s features reveals the importance of Smart Injection Technology. Used in conjunction with ultra-durable Super TPE, this innovative process allows Rapala to precisely inject salt into The Jerk’s belly to add weight and act as a keel, while keeping its back salt-free for extra strength and extended hook-holding capability. Along with salt, the injection process also adds scent and other additives that lead to fish holding the bait longer.
Super TPE and Smart Injection Technology also enable the production of incredibly clear and highly specific custom colours. One of these being a Canadian exclusive, ultra-realistic Smelt pattern.
The precise control afforded of Smart Injection Technology is also responsible for the excellent consistency seen from one CrushCity bait to the next. “When you look at them, every bait looks exactly the same. That gives you consistency, it gives you performance and it gives you exactly the action they were looking to achieve when they engineered these baits,” DeRose said.
Smart Injection Technology is also what enables the incredible details of the CrushCity soft bait collection. This is easily seen in The Jerk’s scale pattern, head details and other realistic baitfish features.
DeRose emphasizes the bait’s versatility throughout the video. In addition to the jigging and drop-shotting tactics noted above, he says fishing The Jerk on a weightless Texas rig and twitching it through the subsurface around pads is a sure bet for catching largemouth bass. One can easily extrapolate this presentation’s potency fished around rocky points, shorelines and off-shore humps for up-feeding smallmouth. Split shot and finesse Carolina rigs are two other options for catching fish on this must-have minnow.
“Trout, salmon, northern pike, walleye, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, even crappie and perch will eat a bait this size,” DeRose said in his wrap-up. “[The Jerk] is the perfect imitation for Canadian waters when you’re looking for that emerald shiner or that smelt-shaped profile, that long slender profile, this is going to fit the bill incredibly well.”
FEATURED PRODUCTS (CANADA)
CrushCity The Jerk | www.rapala.ca/...
VMC Ned Rig Jig | www.rapala.ca/...
VMC Swingin’ Ned Rig Jig | www.rapala.ca/...
VMC Neon Moon Eye | www.rapala.ca/...
VMC RedLine Series Drop Shot Hook | www.rapala.ca/...
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